“Maggie spilt the tea. Is Maggie in really, really big trouble, Mum-may?”
“No, look, forget about the tea. It was just an example. I’m talking about this . . . silliness. It has to stop.” Four sets of wide-open eyes. Four wide-open mouths. “I need you to get behind me. Do you understand?”
Billy stood up and walked round behind me.
I put my hands over my face just as Joni stumped into the camp with a brace of rabbits in one hand and Peter in the other.
“Look who I found up a tree,” she said.
“Be nice, Mummy,” whispered Charlie.
I walked over and looked down at Peter. He met my gaze. I located the muscles that pulled my mouth upward and performed a smile. Then I squinted so that it reached my eyes. Peter’s chin wobbled.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“Yes, Mrs. Greene,” he said. Charlie looked up at me, his fingers writhing together like baby snakes.
I sighed. “Don’t worry about the shovel, Peter, it was old and rotten. We’ll get another one.” He gave a tiny nod. “And . . . you did a great job with that latrine. I’m very much looking forward to using it.” His eyes squinted for a moment in confusion, and then his lips twitched up at the corners. I held his eye contact and leaned a little closer toward him. “But don’t run off again. This forest is not a playground.” I turned and walked away.
“See?” I heard Charlie whisper to Peter.
“Come on, everyone,” I called out. “I don’t trust you here on your own, we’re going shopping.” With Joni’s help it took only a moment to shift the fuel canisters off the roof of the Beast and hide them beneath the overgrown hedgerow. Then we bundled into the car and headed back to the grocery store.
Lola and the big boys kept watch over the car, which I’d turned around and parked facing the road with the engine running. Peter and Charlie stood on the bonnet holding sticks. The Lost Boy stayed in the passenger seat at my insistence because he still didn’t speak or react to instructions with anything approaching urgency. The rest of us ducked under the shutter into the dark interior, which a sweep of the torch showed was just as I’d left it. The Wild Things hadn’t been back. Nor had anyone else. At last, some good news.
“Quick and quiet,” I reminded them. “Get as much as we can while it’s still here.” Joni and I split up with a basket in each hand. Maggie followed Joni down the cereal aisle while I started on the fruit and veg, hoping to find something still fresh. Billy dashed over and grabbed a huge packet of crisps.
“Don’t you want an apple? It’s days since you’ve had any fresh fruit.” I made to grab the bag and he whipped round, sheltering it behind his body.
“My crisps!”
“You can’t just eat crisps, Billy. You need some real food.”
I wrestled him for the packet, which popped open in the struggle. His desperate hand dived inside and burst back out, showering us both with oily crumbs.
“This is not the time to flip out,” I hissed at him. “Just give me the crisps.”
“I’m hungry!” He let out a long whine that stopped me in my tracks. Hunger does that to a mother.
“All right then, here’s an apple. Eat the apple first, okay, then crisps. Yes?”
He turned, and I whipped the packet out of his hand, replacing it with an apple. He worried it with his tiny teeth.
“Too hard,” he whined. “Too green.”
“Just try,” I said. “And stay close. Come on.” He shuffled after me. I filled two baskets and left them by the entrance, picking up two more. Baskets were quieter than trolleys, less likely to alert the Wild Things that we were here.
“Keep up, Billy,” I said, and he followed me to the tin aisle. I stacked up two of everything, bending my knees to haul up the baskets by the arching handles and fetch them to the entrance.
“Billy, where are you now? Bring your apple.” He sidled away down another aisle, doubling back toward the crisps. Stubborn little—Don’t sweat the small stuff, I thought, and let him go.
Lola transferred the full baskets to the car one by one, swinging them between her legs like a contestant on World’s Strongest Man. Charlie and Peter watched the road, paying attention to the task. I nodded and went back in with two more baskets.
“Where are you, Billy?” I called out from the pasta aisle.
“I’m here.” His voice came from the loading bay.
“Come back, would you? Right now!”
There was a suspicious silence that suggested his mouth was full of fried, salty goodness.
I staggered out once more into the light and over to the car. A bass drum in my chest thudded from carrying the heavy baskets and from the adrenaline of being nearly finished. I shouted at the boys to climb down and get inside, ready to go. “Let’s make a quick getaway, kids,” I said. Maggie ran past me into the car and Joni came behind her, loaded down with goodies. She had charcoal and extra-long matches, as well as a tall jar of chicken seasoning and, on the top, several packets of chocolate.
“That’s more like it,” I said. We grinned at each other as we passed. I trotted to the shop, picked up another two baskets.
“Billy, get into the car now, we’re going,” I called. “Bring your crisps!” I lifted the baskets, the heavy ones full of tins, and lurched toward the car. Joni and Lola came up on either side of me, and we shared the weight of the load.
“Are we done?” asked Joni.
“Think so. Anything we’ve forgotten?” I slammed the boot shut. “Billy? Get out here now. We are leaving.”
“Don’t think so.” Joni muttered the items from our list and nodded, satisfied that we’d found them all. “We got a good haul.”
“We did well. Jesus, Billy,” I called, walking toward the store. “What are you doing? You need to come when I say come—now come on.”
“I’ll grab him,” said Lola.
“No! This is what I was talking about earlier—the kids need to do what they’re told when they’re told. This shit is important now.”
“Come on, he’s only three. He doesn’t understand—” Joni said.
“Then he has to learn. Let’s get in the car; he’ll come.”
Joni and Lola got in the passenger side, sharing the front seat now that the boot was loaded. I stamped my feet to make fake footsteps.
“Bye, Billy, I’m going.”
Nothing.
“Okay, then. I’m leaving.” This time I really did walk toward the car.
“Bill-y?” I called in a singsong voice. I was doing it: I was negotiating with a terrorist. “It’s your last chance, come now or Mummy’s going.” I climbed into the driver’s seat, put my foot on the pedal, and revved the engine.
Nothing.
“Billy! That’s your last chance, I’m going.” I slammed the door and put the car into drive, rolling a few feet down the slope. Still he didn’t come.
Joni looked at me with a one-sided smile. “Guess he’s not coming.”
“We’re going to have to work on this.” I pulled on the hand brake and got out of the car. “They need to follow instructions. What if something important happens?”